The Secret of the Education Beat

The Secret of the Education Beat

Published Nov. 14, 2005

By Dave Marcus

After working as an education reporter for years, I finally discovered the secret to covering the beat.

It’s simple: Don’t cover it like an education reporter.

The best stories often are the ones that elude reporters. They’re the stories sitting right behind classroom doors, or in the guidance counselor’s suite or the nurse’s office. They have to do with the way teachers teach; with the way students soar and struggle; with the way some parents pressure their kids while others ignore their kids.

First, an explanation. I started covering schools for the Miami Herald in the 1980s and returned to the beat for US News and World Report in 1999. Then, four years ago, I stepped away from that wonderful job to write a book about teenagers. The project led me to do several gigs teaching at high schools and colleges (I was ready for a sabbatical from journalism). And then my book tour morphed into something unexpected: I was invited to do workshops for parents and teens at middle and high schools.

The further I got from my daily and weekly education coverage, and the more I became a teacher and visiting lecturer, the more I started to understand what’s going on at schools. The answers in many places are discouraging: schools are often factories made to turn out drones; they discourage true creativity among students; they reward mediocre teachers who don’t challenge the administration. In a few places, though, I’ve seen schools that are run like cutting-edge businesses, with principals and faculties that embrace excellence and innovation.

Yet as I traveled the country, I came to expect the usual education pablum in local and regional coverage. You know: the percentage of fourth graders mastering math in District A is up 1 percent while the percentage has declined 1 percent among eighth graders (follow with an assistant superintendent’s quote or soundbite expressing optimism and a dollop of concern). Then there’s a cute pumpkin-carving story, or a feature about one class’s effort to send backpacks to Hurricane Katrina victims.

These stories don’t offer insights to parents and teens. Readers want to know what happens in a typical day at school, or what parents and educators can do to make classes more demanding and more inspiring. The coverage I’ve seen rarely explains why so many schools are larded with boring teachers who don’t have a passion for their jobs, or why the same schools suffocate idealistic teachers who want to make a mark. There aren’t enough stories that help us understand the lives of kids who come to school without their homework because they shuttle from mom’s house to dad’s house; or kids who are teased for being nerds; or kids from all ethnic groups and incomes who feel alone or alienated.

Even after visiting dozens of schools, I’m still alarmed and worried about the emotional baggage so many kids carry. After I gave a speech to high school students in a beautiful Connecticut suburb, a 15-year-old boy confided to me that he was hooked on OxyContin and didn’t know what to do. (His school was fortunate to have a school social worker, which is where I sent him.) After a speech in Long Island, a principal told me about an 11-year-old girl who had taken revealing pictures of herself with her cellphone, then e-mailed them to a boy. The boy posted them on the Web. Such kids are crying out for help. Their stories are messy and hard to cover, but they are important.

As I prepare to return to journalism, I keep thinking about how to cure education-reporter myopia and cover the reality of schools. Here are some thoughts:

1. Cover what the kids and the best teachers are talking about -- avoid the agenda of the district’s flack.
2. Spend a few days in a school, even volunteering as a mentor/writing teacher (but be honest and constantly remind everyone you’re really a reporter).
3. Follow the money. Plenty of education software, test-prep tools and other gimmicks impress taxpayers, but much of it is junk.
4. Speaking of money, many schools do waste it by the bucketful. That’s news worth investigating. But some schools are socked by the soaring costs of the basics. At budget time, ask what a district spends on heating and health insurance. Then ask what special education services that must be provided because of federal laws and pressure from parents’ lawyers.
5. Don’t be hemmed in by artificial constraints like county lines. Why not look at innovative programs in middle schools throughout your readership or viewership area?
6. Write about parents, parents, parents. You can usually judge a school by its parents. If they’re involved, the school probably will have higher standards. What can poorly performing schools do to draw in parents?

I know that deadlines, unreceptive editors and newsroom budget cuts can quash reporters’ best intentions. But I also know that education and family issues are some of the most pressing subjects we cover. Maybe newspaper and broadcast journalists should agree on some standards, a No Education Reporter Left Behind program. We’d dig into stories that go far beyond test scores and school board squabbles. I bet we’d even lure back our readers and audiences.

After two decades as a reporter forThe Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald and US News and World Report, Dave Marcus taught at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and other schools. This year, Houghton Mifflin published his book, "What It Takes to Pull Me Through: Why Teenagers Get in Trouble, and How Four of Them Got Out."